Category Archives: Al Qaeda

The West is in trouble. The entirety of the political class of Western civilization is in complete denial. And the leader of the Free World, America, is largely to blame.
There was a horrific attack overnight on our Christian brothers and sisters as they celebrated the resurrection of Jesus Christ. And today on the Sunday news shows, all the talking heads can talk about is the old-news Mueller probe and the Russian collusion hoax, the same story they’ve been forcing on viewers for 2 long years. And that includes Fox News.

The fact is, because the attack on Christians occurred in a country made up of brown people, the US news media just doesn’t care.

For years Boko Haram made blowing up Christian churches in Nigeria on Easter Sunday, Palm Sunday and Christmas a national sport. Al Shabaab carried out similar attacks in Kenya. The West barely took notice. We managed to at least mention some attacks here on TTB:

Several years ago, Al Qaeda leader Dr. Ayman al-Zawahiri made an announcement that Al Qaeda was turning east and forming Al Qaeda in the Indian Subcontinent. Overnight we saw the results of their work. We may not view 207 dead and 475 wounded Sri Lankans as any big deal (shame on us), but I can assure you, our enemies see it as a big deal.
The problem in that for us is that, by their own doctrine, which I have studied ad nauseam for 15 years, success will–MUST– embolden them.

Maybe the West can get lucky and the Jihadis will only keep killing Christians halfway around the globe…it seems too many of us are content with that.

This news release from Immigration and Customs Enforcement is infuriating to say the least.

While we can all applaud ICE for arresting this guy and getting him to plead guilty, there are some very troubling aspects about Naif Abdulaziz M. Alfallaj’s stay in America and potential sentencing.

Alfallaj was only discovered because of a fingerprint found on a counterterrorism raid in Afghanistan that tied him to an Al Qaeda training camp.

That was a stroke of luck because Alfallaj entered the U.S. way back in 2011.

In other words, a Saudi citizen who attended an Al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan was able to enter the U.S. on a nonimmigrant visa because his wife had status as a foreign student.

And he walked around America freely until February 2018.

But that’s not all…get this…he used his visa to enroll in a private flight school in Oklahoma.

The potential sentencing of Alfallaj is a problem as well. The maximum sentence for visa fraud is just 10 years. The maximum sentence for making a false statement involving international terrorism is just 8 years. It’s hard to believe that a guy who attended an Al Qaeda training camp will emerge from a US prison with anything other than hatred for America. The ICE press release indicates that he will have to leave the country when his prison sentence is done.

That likely means that a hardened Jihadi with a particular hatred for America, as well as experience inside American culture, will be at large somewhere in the world down the road.

Maybe that’s why we were putting these monsters in Gitmo in the first place.

OKLAHOMA CITY — A man from Saudi Arabia who is a former resident of Weatherford, Oklahoma, pleaded guilty Friday to visa fraud and making a false statement to the FBI by, among other things, concealing his application to and attendance at an al Qaeda training camp in Afghanistan in late 2000.

This guilty plea was announced by the following agency heads: Assistant Attorney General for National Security John C. Demers, First Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert J. Troester of the Western District of Oklahoma, and Special Agent in Charge Kathryn Peterson of the FBI’s Oklahoma City Division.

This case resulted from an investigation by the FBI Joint Terrorism Task Force, which includes members from the following agencies: U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement’s (ICE) Homeland Security Investigations (HSI), U.S. Secret Service, Transportation Security Administration, Oklahoma Highway Patrol, University of Oklahoma Police Department, Oklahoma City Police Department, and Edmond (Oklahoma) Police Department.

“Protecting our national security is the highest priority of the Department of Justice,” said Mr. Troester. “I commend the outstanding efforts of the FBI’s Joint Terrorism Task Force for its collaborative and focused work in this investigation.”

“This investigation highlights the ongoing, coordinated efforts of the FBI and the Joint Terrorism Task Force to protect and defend the American people against any potential acts of terror,” said Kathryn Peterson, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Oklahoma City Division.

On Feb. 5, 2018, Naif Abdulaziz M. Alfallaj, 35, a citizen of Saudi Arabia, was taken into custody by the FBI without incident, based on a criminal complaint signed in the Western District of Oklahoma. According to the complaint, the FBI found 15 of Alfallaj’s fingerprints on an application to an al Qaeda training camp, known as al Farooq, which was one of al Qaeda’s key training sites in Afghanistan. The document was recovered by the U.S. military from an al Qaeda safe house in Afghanistan. The document is also alleged to include an emergency contact number associated with Alfallaj’s father in Saudi Arabia. Alfallaj is alleged to have first entered the U.S. in late 2011 on a nonimmigrant visa based on his wife’s status as a foreign student. According to the complaint, he answered several questions on his visa application falsely, including whether he had ever supported terrorists or terrorist organizations. Alfallaj has been detained in federal custody since his Feb. 5 arrest.

On Feb. 6, a grand jury returned a three-count indictment against Alfallaj. The indictment charged two counts of visa fraud. Count One alleged that from March 2012 to the present, Alfallaj possessed a visa obtained by fraud. Count Two alleged he used that visa in October 2016 to apply for lessons at a private flight school in Oklahoma. The third count charged him with making a false statement to the FBI involving an offense of international terrorism, when he denied ever having associated with anyone from a foreign terrorist group.

At the Dec. 14 hearing, Alfallaj pleaded guilty to one count of visa fraud and one count of making a false statement to the FBI relating to international terrorism. In particular, he admitted he possessed a nonimmigrant visa from March 2012 to early 2018 that he obtained by fraud. He also admitted he falsely told agents during the December 2017 interview that he had never visited Afghanistan or participated in religious, tactical or military training outside Saudi Arabia; and he otherwise affirmed falsely that all of the answers on his nonimmigrant visa application were true and correct.

Alfallaj faces up to 10 years in prison on the visa-fraud offense. He faces up to eight years in prison for making a false statement involving international terrorism. He could also be fined up to $250,000 on each count. As part of his plea agreement, Alfallaj consented to the entry of a stipulated judicial order of removal from the United States after he completes whatever prison term may be imposed. The Court will set a sentencing date in about 90 days. The maximum sentence is prescribed by Congress and is provided here for informational purposes. Any sentencing of the defendant will be determined by the court, based on the advisory Sentencing Guidelines and other statutory factors.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Matt Dillon of the Western District of Oklahoma and Trial Attorney David C. Smith of the National Security Division’s Counterterrorism Section are prosecuting this case.

Many believe that the best way to judge someone is not just by their friends, but by their enemies.

If that axiom is true, then America must be doing something right, because the lowest of the low in the human race are coming forth with their venom and threats in the wake of President Trump’s announcement that the U.S. will move its embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem.

Just about every Jihadist organization on the planet has chimed in.

Before you assume that President Trump’s announcement will touch off attacks of retaliation, you should realize that all of these organizations have already carried out atrocities and attacks. Moving the embassy to Jerusalem will not change them. It merely draws them out into the open with their disgusting rhetoric:

• Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan “spokesman” Mohammad Khorasani issued a statement condemning President Trump’s decision and called for “all Muslims to unite against kufr (non-believers).”

• The founder and leader of the UN- designated terrorist group Jaish-e-Mohammed, Maulana Masood Azhar, released a threatening statement against President Trump’s decision.

• In a statement posted on on the Ikhwanonline.info website, the Muslim Brotherhood declared the U.S. an “enemy” and “Jerusalem is an Islamic and Arab land, for which we will shed our blood, freedom and life, and we fight every aggressor and every supporter of aggression. This is the way of our Jihad.”

• Al Qaeda released the following statement: “Recognition of Jerusalem as capital of the Zionist entity is blatant aggression by Crusader Trump against the sanctities of Muslims. The surest and shortest way to confront the aggression and arrogance of the Pharaoh of this age, the U.S., is Jihad in the Way of Allah, by targeting its vital interests and the interests of its Zionist and Crusader allies everywhere.”

• Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb: “We call on every mujahid to support the liberation of Palestine, the victory of the Palestinians to purge al-Aqsa of Jewish filth.”

• Kashmir-based Ansar Ghazwat-ul-Hind: “It is a duty upon Muslims to come forth with urgency and do everything needed to stop the madman sitting in the White House and stop him from dishonoring the sacred land of Bayt al-Maqdis and to storm and burn the embassies of the U.S. and Israel to demolish them. We urge honorable Muslims across the world to attack and harm U.S. and Israeli companies and financial and commercial interests. The honor of Bayt al-Maqdis will be restored by shedding the blood of Americans and Israelis. It is the duty of every Muslim, no matter where, to restore the honor of Bayt al-Maqdis. The Holy Land must be made the graveyard for Jews.”

• The Hasam Movement (Arms of Egypt Movement) released a written statement calling for an uprising in response to the decision.

• Hezbollah: Hezbollah leader Sayyed Nasrallah spoke and said that the most important reactions that must be made are a new Intifada and a new Arab summit. He also said the decision was a legitimate reason to target U.S. forces.

• Al Shabaab: “Trump’s decision to relocate the U.S. embassy is evidence of aggression against Islam and Muslims. We urge all Muslims to take up weapons and defend al-Aqsa from the American-backed Zionist occupation.”

• The Taliban: “The Islamic Emirate strongly condemns recognition of Muslims’ first Qibla Baital Maqdas, as the capital of occupying Israel by the president of America. We consider this anti-Muslim bigotry and a reckless step. The decision by Trump will fan the flames of conflict in the entire world, especially in the Middle East.”

The folks over at the Clarion Project have a review of a new report published by the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change. The report is entitled: “Struggle Over Scripture: Charting the Rift Between Islamist Extremism and Mainstream Islam.”

On the one hand, the report recognizes the close affiliation between the ideas of the Islamic State and other violent Jihadists and the Muslim Brotherhood, which some describe as “Islamist” in that it promotes an Islamic political agenda.

That’s the good news.

The bad news is that the report refuses to recognize the “elephant in the room,” namely why the Islamic State and the Muslim Brotherhood are so closely aligned.

“The evidence now shows that there is considerable ideological overlap in how Islamic scripture is used by Islamists, like the Muslim Brotherhood, and violent jihadists, such as ISIS and Al Qaeda,” said Dr Emman El-Badawy, head of research at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change.

Clarion adds the following commentary:

The findings of the study about the close ideological connection between jihadists and the Muslim Brotherhood were borne out historically as well as noted in current events.

In the recently released CIA documents seized during the raid that killed Osama bin Laden, papers show bin Laden’s ideology from the beginning was affiliated with the Brotherhood.

“I was committed to the Muslim Brotherhood, despite their limited curriculum,” bin Laden said in hand-written notes. “I was religious from a young age…There was no one guiding me like the Brotherhood was. It was just natural instinct.”

In a recent appearance, Palestinian-Jordanian historian Husni Ayesh, a former member of Jordan’s Board of Education, said ISIS and al-Qaeda developed from the ideology of the Muslim Brotherhood.

The leader of al-Qaeda’s branch in Yemen also recently said in a statement that his group has formed alliances with other Sunni jihadists in the country, including the Muslim Brotherhood.

In addition, despite Hamas’ apparent attempt to distance itself from its own terrorist past and its parent body, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Egyptian Brotherhood insists the two are still connected.

The report notes that claims by groups such as the Islamic State and Al Qaeda to have theological backing for their violence are going unchallenged by mainstream Islamic scholars.

Now we get to the crux of the matter.

First of all, let’s point out that the term “Islamist” is basically flawed redundancy because mainstream Islamic doctrine has no recognition of secular government or politics. It has always been assumed in Islamic history that the government must govern by Allah’s law.

We don’t object strenuously to the use of this term though because we do not believe it covers up anything and mainly because the Ayatollah Khomeini, certainly one of the most infamous Islamic leaders of all time on at least one occasion referred to himself as an “Islamist.” At TTB we don’t believe in making up terms to describe the enemy, but if the enemy uses a term himself, then we see no problem in its usage.

There is a reason why the Muslim Brotherhood’s philosophy is so close to that of the Islamic State and Al Qaeda and it has been known for decades to those paying attention: they all base their activities on Islamic doctrine.

It is mainstream Islamic doctrine that all Muslims must strive for the formation of the caliphate so that Allah’s religion is supreme over all other religions and so that Allah’s law rules over all (Allah’s law being shariah).This is not Jihadist ideology. It is not Islamist philosophy. It is mainstream Islamic doctrine, which forms the foundation for ideologies and philosophies. (More on the relationship between Islamic doctrine and Jihadist ideology in an upcoming article soon.)

The Islamic State, Al Qaeda and the Muslim Brotherhood are all fighting and working toward establishing a caliphate ruled by shariah. That is why they seem so similar in philosophy–they have the same doctrine and goal.

This is not new, though we welcome the Tony Blair Institute in recognizing it.

Now, this brings us to the question of why these groups’ justification for their actions are going “unchallenged by mainstream Islamic scholars.”

The reason is simple once again. No Islamic scholar can challenge their goals because their stated goals of establishing a caliphate and establishing rule by shariah is mainstream Islamic doctrine.

There is no disagreement. There may be disagreement on methodology from time to time but the doctrine is clear. And make no mistake, organizations like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State base all their actions with copious quotation and interpretation of Islamic scripture, either the Quran or the just as important Sunnah of Mohammed.

The Sunnah of Mohammed is the doctrine that the Prophet Mohammed was considered the perfect example for all Muslims to follow and all Muslims should do their best to emulate him in every way. The Sunnah of Mohammed comes from the Hadith (stories and sayings about his life) and the Sira, which is his biography.

Believe it or not, from a practical standpoint, the Sunnah of Mohammed is more important than even the Quran because there is simply not enough information in the Quran to learn to be a pious, devout Muslim. But the Quran does command Muslims to do as Mohammed did, so they go to the Hadith and the Sira to find out what to do.

Mohammed waged violent jihad–often. Mohammed killed Jews–on a mass scale. Mohammed married a 6 year old girl. Mohammed had multiple wives. Mohammed owned many slaves, including concumbines–Christian sex slaves. All of this is part of Islamic doctrine because Mohammed did it and no one is authorized to change that.

You won’t hear a mainstream Islamic scholar criticize anything Mohammed did. To do so would amount to apostasy, for which he can be put to death.

Both the Islamic State and Al Qaeda have issued audio, video or online threats to attack the West this Christmas.

These threats focus on European population centers, such as Paris and London, and New York City in America, though the possibility of Jihadi attacks in other places in the West can certainly not be discounted. History has shown that places as diverse geographically as Brussels, Berlin and San Bernardino have all been targeted, especially at Christmas time.

Lone Wolf or Individual Jihad?

The possible attacks in the West could take the form of organized, planned attacks directed from Jihadi leaders overseas or inside Europe or America, or they could be carried out by individuals “inspired” by Jihadist ideology.

Ironically, very often, Western media and officials seem to take some form of weird comfort when a deadly attack ends up being the work of an individual jihadi, as opposed to an organized cell or affiliate of a known terrorist group.

In reality, the opposite should be the case.

First of all, none of the Jihadist groups–Islamic State, Al Qaeda, HAMAS, Hezbollah, the Taliban, Boko Haram, Al Shabaab, Lashkar e Taiba, Ansar al-Sharia, Abu Sayyef, Jemaah Islamiyeh–issue membership cards or wear uniforms. So a case can be made that classification of an attacker as “inspired” or “directed” could be a distinction without a difference.

But there is a difference between a cell such as the 19 hijackers who carried out the September 11 attacks after training and planning conducted by Al Qaeda’s leadership and infrastructure, and the husband and wife team who shot up a Christmas party of people they knew and worked with in San Bernardino. (Though it is vital that we understand that their acts are based on the same Islamic doctrine and they are tied together by the same Jihadist ideology.)

So which flavor of Jihadi is more dangerous?

If you’re on the receiving end of an attack, it makes no difference to you, but by casualty count, the cell would appear to pose a greater threat. On the other hand, the inspired attacks seem to happen much more frequently.

A case can be made that individual Jihadis pose a greater challenge for our intelligence and law enforcement communities.

Cells have to be organized, trained and communicated back and forth with. All of this provides opportunities for detection and even infiltration.

Individual jihadis don’t offer any of these potential vulnerabilities. One can infiltrate a cell, especially one in which members are using cell phones and email to contact each other and leaders elsewhere. How does one infiltrate one guy, like the Chattanooga, Tennessee shooter, the Orlando shooter or the Uzbeki vehicle jihad attacker in New York City?

If the individual jihadi isn’t communicating with others and no one is aware of his or her plans, how are our intelligence and law enforcement assets supposed to detect them “left of bang” (before the attack)?

Unfortunately, here in the West, and the U.S. in particular, we have failed to even properly identify the nature of the threat. A popular term in Western vernacular to describe the threat of individual jihad is the term “lone wolf.”

The term “lone wolf” does not appear in Islamic doctrine, nor is it part of any Jihadist group ideology.

What is part of Islamic doctrine and Jihadist ideology is the concept of Jihad as an individual obligation. So what we have been seeing around the world are acts of individual jihad based on Islamic doctrine and Jihadist ideology. Given the basis for these attacks, they are not “senseless violence.” We can explain and understand these attacks based upon Islamic doctrine and Jihadist ideology.

Most importantly, the wave of individual jihadi attacks in recent years is all part of plans articulated by Jihadi ideologues:

Successful jihad will only happen within an ummah [Islamic nation or community] in which the fighting creed is firmly established and clarified. This must happen in order to attain the “Revolutionary Jihadist Climate” that will spontaneously give rise to instruments of resistance.

Violent jihad is as an individual duty obligatory upon every Muslim. All the ulema have said this…”

We are now seeing this “Revolutionary Jihadist Climate” in the West as evidenced by the rise of seemingly spontaneous acts of Jihad carried out by individual Muslims with no known direct contacts with Jihadist organizations.

It is this threat that we are most likely to see this Christmas.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year from your Local Jihadi

Warnings in Jihadist literature and on Jihadi social media aren’t meant to give us a heads up. They are meant to inspire individual Jihadis to rise up and attack, in this case during the Christmas season. If recent history is any indication, we will see an act of deadly jihad somewhere in the West as a result of these communications.

The Christmas and New Year season is a particularly high-risk period as it offers unusually large numbers of potentially high-value and high-casualty targets, not just in places like New York, London, Paris and Berlin, but in just about every major city in the West.

The holiday season brings large crowds at sporting events, Christmas celebrations and ceremonies, churches, parks, restaurants and other gathering locations. In addition, the holiday season is also characterized by high volumes of leisure travel leading to large numbers of travellers in airports and train depots. The vast number of potential targets makes it virtually impossible for homeland security and law enforcement agencies to deploy enough personnel to successfully prevent every possible attack.

The Western holiday season is particularly attractive to Islamic jihadists because any successful attack, even a minor one, becomes a propaganda victory that can inspire others to follow suit and aid in Jihadist organization recruitment (despite what the U.S. government has said, Jihadis don’t recruit based on the prison at Gitmo; they recruit based on their successful attacks).

Jihadists have repeatedly demonstrated their will and capacity to plan and execute attacks during high-profile events. The Nice (July 216), Berlin (December 2016) and Manchester (May 2017) attacks show how individual jihadis and small cells can successfully carry out mass-casualty attacks. Despite their resounding defeats in Iraq and Syria, the Islamic State continues to benefit from supporters in the West, which means there is a greater risk of terrorist attacks in the West during the holiday season.

We are most likely to see vehicle jihad using large trucks, knife jihad (stabbings) and shooting attacks, but improvised explosive device (IED) attacks are certainly also a possibility using pressure cookers (Boston marathon bombing), fertilizer and diesel fuel (1993 World Trade Center bombing) or propane tanks (failed Time Square VBIED attack).

This is why intelligence services and foreign service offices continue to issue bulletins almost on a daily basis for Europe. As Christmas nears, we should expect to see such alerts issued for major events in the U.S. as well.

The Muslim Brotherhood is the forerunner of all modern Jihadist terror organizations: HAMAS, Al Qaeda, the Islamic State all can trace their origins to the Muslim Brotherhood.

In the case of HAMAS, it is in actuality THE Muslim Brotherhood in the West Bank and Gaza.

Islam provides the doctrinal basis for the Muslim Brotherhood and its modern offspring. But it is largely the Muslim Brotherhood and its ideologues–Qutb, al Banna and others–that provided the ideological underpinnings for Al Qaeda, the Islamic State and others.

Arab media is increasingly addressing the insidious role of the Muslim Brotherhood. The article excerpted and linked below would have been unheard of a dozen years ago.

The fight to uproot terrorism and extremism begins at its Muslim Brotherhood roots, with that organisation’s structure, doctrines and ideologues.

The US government has recently released to the public a large batch of documents that were recovered in the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan, in May 2011. What strikes one immediately, in these documents, is how the terrorist ideology that obsessed Bin Laden was rooted in Muslim Brotherhood ideology. The Al-Qaeda leader was steeped in the literature published by the Muslim Brotherhood’s founders and ideologues…

This phenomenon is hardly unique among prominent terrorists and their organisations. The Muslim Brotherhood had always served as the “incubator” and the primary school in which terrorists take their first steps towards embracing extremist thought and its violent applications. Leaders of such organisations as Al-Gamaa Al-Islamiya and the Islamic Jihad in Egypt emerged directly from the folds of Muslim Brotherhood thought and practice. Among the star students were current Al-Qaeda chief Ayman Al-Zawahri, Mohamed Ata, who led that terrorist attack against the World Trade Center in New York on 11 September 2001, and the mastermind of the whole operation, Khaled Sheikh Mohamed. Although some of those individuals and organisations had their differences with the Muslim Brotherhood at some later juncture, their collective “jihadist” thought had its origins with the founders of the Muslim Brotherhood, whether in its first edition (Hassan Al-Banna) or its second edition (Sayed Qotb). While Qotb is always regarded as the father of contemporary terrorists, his ideas and outlooks can be traced to Al-Banna and the birth of the Muslim Brotherhood in 1928.

British security services are preparing a new crackdown on terrorism as the threat against the UK continues to grow.

Ben Wallace, the security minister, said a total of eight planned attacks have now been thwarted since the Isis-inspired massacre in Westminster in March, bringing the total to 21 since 2013.

“Nearly 600 investigative leads are ongoing, covering about 3,000 people and approximately another 20,000 people who we have at some stage had concern about,” he told the Westminster Counter-terrorism Conference.

Around 850 people travelled from the UK to join Isis and al-Qaeda in Syria, with 15 per cent killed and half returned home, according to Government figures.

The magazine is published by the media arm of Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, but it covers Al Qaeda operations worldwide. In particular, Inspire 17 features the emir of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, Abu Musab Abdel al-Wadoud.

However, this latest issue of Inspire is noteworthy in that the most prominent personality in the magazine is Hamza bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden. Hamza bin Laden is emerging as a global leader of Al Qaeda and has specifically vowed to take revenge on the U.S. for killing his father.

Here is a brief summary of the highlights of Inspire 17:

Al Qaeda claims that they will be concentrating on targeting Western nations’ transportation infrastructure, seeking to disrupt the movement of people and cargo.

While Al Qaeda says that they will be targeting all aspects of transportation, air, sea and land, as well as local and international, Inspire 17 focuses on rail transport.

As implied by the name “inspire” Al Qaeda seeks to inspire individual Jihadis to take action. They suggest attacking transport vehicles such as trains and aircraft, lines of transport, such as railways, and stations, terminals and transit points, such as train stations, subway terminals and airports.

But America is not the only target mentioned in the magazine. It sets a priority order for targets in the following order: “everyone who transgresses against our religion,” Jewish interests, US, NATO, Russia.

Al Qaeda specifically instructs its followers to target civilians, as opposed to military targets: “In targeting civilians, there is much advantage and benefit for attaining goals of Jihad that cannot be attained when targeting the military.”

The emir of Al Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), Abu Musab Abdel al-Wadoud is quoted as singling out France for attack: “France! Do you know time for settling debts has approached? Do not think you will escape punishment! Start preparing to pay what you owe to Muslims, in cash and in kind.”

France has conducted a robust military campaign against AQIM for several years now.

The impact on Western and American lifestyles from increased security measures is not lost on Al Qaeda: “O Mujahideen, it is time we instill fear and make them impose strict security measures to trains as they did with air.”

Concentrating on rail, the magazine describes a austere technique for attacking trains by derailing them from railroad tracks by positioning an item on them that will alter the course of the train’s wheels.

Unlike previous terror attacks on rail infrastructure, such a technique would not require explosives.

The magazine points out the merit of derailing high speed trains and lists Acela in the US, Class 395 Javelin in the UK and TGV in France as high speed trains to attack.

The magazine also suggests prioritizing derailing trains with HAZMAT cargo in cities and towns in the USA.

We can now add Melbourne, Australia to the long list of Western cities victimized by jihad during the Muslim “holy” month of Ramadan.

Late yesterday afternoon, Yacqub Khayre, 29, an Australian citizen of Somali descent–who came to Australia as a child refugee at the age of 4–killed one innocent victim and took another hostage before being killed by police in a shootout and siege that lasted some 2 hours.

Khayre killed a Chinese-Australian man in the lobby of an apartment building in the affluent Brighton area of Melbourne. He then took a woman hostage in the building. Within two hours he was shot dead by police after opening fire on them.

Initial reports of the incident indicated that it was not “terrorist-related,” however those reports turned out to be inaccurate.

It turns out that Khayre called a local television station during the stand-off stating, “This is for the Islamic State, this is for Al-Qaeda.”

Subsequently, the Islamic State media arm, Amaq, claimed credit for the attack, stating,””The executor of the Melbourne attack in Australia is a soldier of the Islamic State and he carried out the attack in response to appeals to target citizens of coalition states.”

Once again, it turns out that Yacqub Khayre was known to authorities, had a long history of violence, had previously been charged with a terror offense but acquitted and was known to have connections in the past, with “violent extremists,” (which is of course a misnomer for Jihadists)